Hayle Railway

The Hayle Railway was an early railway in West Cornwall, constructed to convey copper and tin ore from the Redruth and Camborne areas to sea ports at Hayle and Portreath. It was opened in 1837, and carried passengers on its main line from 1843.

Part of the main line was incorporated into the route of the West Cornwall Railway in 1852, and is part of the main line railway to the present day; information about the modern operation of the railway route in Cornwall can be found at Cornish Main Line.

General description The Hayle Railway was opened on 29 December 1837 between Hayle and Portreath, with the remainder opening during 1838. When fully opened, its eastern terminals were at Redruth and copper and tin mines at Tresavean and Lanner, and it ran to wharves and a foundry at Hayle. A long branch was also opened from Pool (later called Carn Brea) to Portreath.

Steam traction was used on part of the route from the outset, but horse traction was used at first at the western end. There were four inclines (described below) which were rope-worked.

The railway enabled the transportation of copper and tin ore from the mines, using coastal shipping or onward transport. Coal (for fuelling pumps which kept the mines dry) and machinery and timber were brought in, and general merchandise was conveyed.E T MacDermot, History of the Great Western Railway, volume II, published by the Great Western Railway Company, London, 1931Alan Bennett, The Great Western Railway in West Cornwall, Runpast Publishing, Cheltenham, 1988, S C Jenkins and R C Langley, The West Cornwall Railway, Oakwood Press, 2002, The Story of Cornwall's Railways, undated, published by D Bradford Barton, Truro

The line was built to standard gauge, the first such in Cornwall, and it had no connection with any other railway. The permanent way was T-section rails laid on stone block sleepers. It was single-line throughout, except for double track on the inclines.

The line from Redruth to Hayle was in length; Tresavean to Redruth Junction was ; the Portreath branch was ; the Hayle branch (on the quays at Hayle) was long, and there were short branches to Roskear () and North Crofty (). (There are 80 chains in a mile; one chain is 22 yards, or about 20 metres.)

Formation and opening

In the early years of the 19th century, mineral extraction and smelting was a dynamic industry in West Cornwall, and the port of Hayle was well established. However the transport of heavy materials over imperfect unmade roads was a severe limitation. When the Redruth and Chasewater Railway was opened in 1826 (as a horse-drawn railway), it was immediately successful operationally and financially. This encouraged owners of mines and works not served by that line to promote a railway from Tresavean to Hayle, serving numerous other mines in between. Accordingly, the Hayle Railway Company was incorporated by act of Parliament, the (4 & 5 Will. 4. c. lxviii), on 27 June 1834; the company was to have headquarters in London, and a share capital of £64,000, with authority to borrow £16,000 in debenture. A branch to Helston was included, but this was dropped in a second act of Parliament, the (6 & 7 Will. 4. c. cx), of 4 July 1836.

Construction proceeded well, except for the provision of a drawbridge at the western end of the line. (Presumably this was the bridge at the sluice at the mouth of Copperhouse Pool.) In 1837 the company proposed to open all of its line east of the bridge, which would have connected all the mines to the harbour, but would have left the foundry owned by Henry Harvey, located immediately to the west, disconnected. Harvey was concerned that this temporary arrangement would disadvantage him competitively, and he drew attention to a clause in the authorising Act requiring that "the line should be completed before opening". His objection motivated the directors of the company, and the drawbridge was speedily completed.

The line was therefore opened from Hayle foundry to Pool and Portreath on 23 December 1837. The continuation to Redruth was formally opened on 31 May 1838, and fully opened to the public on 11 June 1838. The Tresavean line opened on 23 June 1838.

The network therefore consisted of:G H Anthony, The Hayle, West Cornwall and Helston Railways, Oakwood Press, Lingfield, 1968

Hayle to Redruth Junction: 9 mi 30 ch Redruth Junction to Redruth: 14 ch Redruth Junction to Tresavean: 2 mi 55 ch Portreath branch: 3 mi 6 ch Roskear branch: 77 ch Crofty branch 48 ch Hayle branch (presumably the North Quay sidings): 25 ch

Route description

Main line The station at Redruth was in the angle of Blowinghouse Hill and Coach Lane; it had been open from the beginning as a goods terminal, and passenger services started on 23 May 1843; there was a single platform beneath a wooden train shed.

At the south-west corner of the station site, the Tresavean branch trailed in, and the line headed west, following the route now used by the main line. It passed Portreath Junction, where the line from the harbour there trailed in. A little further was Pool station (later called Carn Brea). Immediately to the east of the station were workshops and engine sheds, and connections to mines. Further west the Crofty branch (to mines) diverged, and then the Roskear branch, also serving mines and workshops, trailed in at Roskear Junction.

Next was Camborne station, beyond which the line ran a little to the south of the present main line, to the head of the Penponds incline, just to the west of Pendarves Road. The engine house that must have been here has been obliterated by housing development.

The bottom end of the incline was to the west of Mill Road; having reached the lower level, the line curved round sharply to the north, following the contour, turning west again. It crossed the small valley formed by an arm of the Red River immediately to the north of the present viaduct, and the then by a separate bridge over the adjacent Old Mill Lane (in fact a footpath and farm track). The later replacement viaduct is at a much higher level and crosses both the river and lane in a single structure, but the original lane bridge is still present; it is shown as "tunnel" on some modern large scale maps.

The old line continued broadly westward, at first a little to the north of the modern route, with a southward loop to follow the contour through the site of the later Gwinear Road station, and then to near Trenowin Farm, where the line continued almost due west; the present line diverges to the south. Crossing Steamers Hill, the line came to the head of Angarrack incline and descended to Phillack, running on the north side of Copperhouse Pool. The three arch bridge over a stream at Lethlean (near Phillack, just south of the middle of Glebe Row) is the oldest surviving railway bridge in Cornwall.Hayle Historical Assessment Cornwall - a Report for English Heritage, Nick Cahill, Cornwall Archaeology Unit, 2000, online at ; but the report's Inventory reads "...It is said to be the oldest ..." and it is difficult to see why it is older than the Penponds "tunnel" referred to earlier. This bridge was the subject of a restoration project conducted by Hayle Scouts in 1982.

Continuing to the western end of the Pool, there was probably a "station" called Hayle Riviere close to the present North Quay. At this point the line swung south, crossing the channel by a swing bridge—the present swing bridge is not on the same alignment.

From the swing bridge the line swung sharply west and then followed the southerly alignment of Penpol Terrace, crossing under the present-day Hayle Viaduct, and then turning north, once more under the later Hayle Viaduct, to sidings on East Quay; there were also siding connections to Harvey's machine factory. North Quay was also served by sidings, with a junction, facing for trains from Redruth, east of the swing bridge.

When passenger services were first in operation, in May 1843, trains apparently started and terminated at Crotch's Hotel, close to Foundry Square. A proper station building came into use in Foundry Square from 27 May 1844. The Hayle station buildings were on the outside of the railway's loop south of the present Hayle viaduct, between the Hayle Railway line and the present B3301 road. There were two buildings; the eastern building is marked Literary Institution on the 1879 Ordnance Survey map, having changed to that use. The buildings are numbers 333 and 334 on the inventory and map 16d in Hayle Historical Assessment Cornwall, (but a different numbering system was used in the summary document). A photograph of 1938 indicates that it was then in use by the Hayle Women's Unionist Association; it was demolished in December 1948.Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith, Western Main Lines : St Austell to Penzance, Middleton Press, Midhurst 2001,

Portreath branch The Portreath branch left the main line at Pool (later Carn Brea; facing for trains from Hayle) and ran broadly north-northwest to the head of the Portreath incline, where the line turned north to descend to the harbour there. The general alignment is detectable in aerial photographs, and the incline head is accessible; there is an underbridge at the foot of the incline, which is clearly visible.

Tresavean branch The line started from Wheal Comfort mine at Tresavean, and followed a zigzag course to stay on the contour, passing west of Lanner and crossing the Redruth and Chasewater Railway there. (There was no connection as the other railway was of a different gauge, although both lines had a siding near the crossing.D B Barton, The Redruth & Chasewater Railway, D B Barton (publisher), Truro, 1960) Passing near Wheal Uny, the line ran to the head of its incline immediately west of Trewirgle Road; the line fell to the level of the Redruth terminus, and turned west at the foot to join it. Most of the alignment is plain in aerial photographs; the point of intersection with the Redruth & Chasewater line, and the incline near the head, are accessible.

Barton states that the Tresavean line "was horse worked, locomotives normally running only to the top of the incline up from the main Camborne - Redruth main line".

Inclines There was a large fall in elevation from the mines to the ports, and to optimise the haulage capacity available at the time, the line was laid out with generally moderate gradients, but with four inclines (sometimes referred to as inclined planes). The inclines carried the railway down a steep hillside, and the "trains" (or groups of wagons) were controlled by a rope, hauled or let out from an engine house or other control location at the head of the incline. Generally locomotives were used to haul the trains to and from the ends of the inclines, and did not themselves travel with the train. However horse traction was used west of the Angarrack incline at first, but from 1843 locomotives worked over the incline, using the rope for traction and braking, and from there to Hayle.

A more general description of the use of inclined planes in railway situations is at Cable railway.

The four inclined planes were at: Redruth on the Tresavean line, just south of the junction with the Redruth terminus line, and often referred to as Tresavean incline; Portreath, immediately south of the harbour Penponds, west of Camborne; and Angarrack

The Redruth incline was long, with a rise of ; it was gravity worked, and was in operation from 1837 to 1935.

The Portreath incline was long with a rise of about . It was worked by a stationary steam engine.

Penponds incline was about long, and was worked on the counterbalanced principle.

Angarrack incline was long with a fall of about ; it was powered by a stationary steam engine.Inclined Planes in the South West, Martin Bodman, Twelveheads Press, Truro, 2012,